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2/26/2018Quicken vs QuickBooks for Farm& Ranch BusinessesRandy SanerNebraska Extension Educatorrandy.saner@unl.edu308-532-2683Quicken User friendly. Quicken is easy for people unfamiliar with accountingterms to use, making it a good place to start when changing from a handkept cash accounting system to computerized Inexpensive and readily available. Depending on the version that youselect, Quicken may be purchased for 40-150 at many retail outlets. Flexible. Allows record-keeping for a wide variety of agricultural and nonag business enterprises, as well as family living expenses.1
2/26/2018Quicken vs QuickBooks Quicken QuickBooks Easier to learn and simpler to use (fewer options)More Features and options but more difficult tolearn.Basically a single-entry accounting system; finefor simple checkbook-based income and expensesrecords.Essentially a double-entry accounting system, butcan be used for either single or double-entrybookkeeping. (Many users use QuickBooks as asingle entry system.)Plenty of reporting capability for most users.More extensive reporting capabilities, includingmore “standard” accounting reports. Morecapabilities for exporting reports and data, such asto Microsoft Excel , where you can create your ownspecialized reports.Has features to track stocks and otherinvestments.No investment tracking features.No inventory system.Has an inventory system, but with significantlimitations for many types of business. It onlysupports average costing method of inventoryvaluation.Quicken vs QuickBooks Quicken QuickBooks No payroll capabilities. You can do payrollcalculations manually or in separate payroll programof your choosing, then enter the wages, taxes, andwithholding manually in Quicken .Complete, easy-to-use payroll system. Must pay forupgrade every couple years if you want to continueusing payroll.Limited support for invoicing, receivables, etc., but Many professional-quality small businessfeatures: invoicing, customer statements,some support in Quicken Home & Business andhigher.accounts receivable etc.Single-user versions only.Can be used as either single-user or multi-user.The number of simultaneous users alloweddepends which version you buy.No programing interface, so few 3rd-party orcustom add-on programs are available except forthose available from Intuit, such as Bill Pay andMedical Expense Manager.Since 2003, Intuit has provided the QuickBooks Software Development Kit (SDK), a programinginterface software developers can use to writeQuickBooks add-ons.Single-users street price 40 - 150, depending onedition.Single-users street price: 150 - 500 for desktopeditions. QuickBooks Online is sold on amonthly subscription basis.2
2/26/2018Deciding: Quicken vs. QuickBooks What is your accounting background/understanding? If you need double-entry accounting capability buy QuickBooks If you want simplicity and single entry or checkbook accounting buy Quicken What are your accounting goals? If you will keep records on cash-basis Quicken and QuickBooks don’t really differ much in what they offer. Do you hire employees? QuickBooks comes with a complete payroll system, and can print the requiredquarterly reports, etc. Quicken does not have a payroll features. Quicken userswho pay employees either do the payroll calculations manually or purchase separatesoftware, then enter the payroll features manually.Deciding: Quicken vs. QuickBooks Do you have a sideline business? Quicken began (and remains to this day) a software primarily designed for personalfinancial management – keeping track of income and expenses, balancing acheckbook, monitoring investments, etc. QuickBooks , on the other hand, was designed to streamline the paper flow andaccounting needs of small business. If you do much invoicing, or need to keep trackof accounts payable and receivable, or collect and report sales tax, or send customerstatements, then QuickBooks is usually the better choice Where will you get support? Especially if you are new to using a computer for record keeping, your choice may beinfluenced by where and from whom you can get your questions answered.3
2/26/2018Deciding: Quicken vs. QuickBooks What does your accountant and/or tax preparer want to work with? QuickBooks is preferred by many tax professionals: You can take in a flash drivewith your quick books file on it, giving the tax preparer direct access to QuickBooks records for preparing your taxes. While the same is possible with Quicken , fewer tax professionals support Quicken in the same way. (Fewer of them have Quicken installed on their computer systems:meaning they’ll be unable to open your Quicken data files.) However, many taxpreparers don’t really have a preference –they’re just as willing to work with paperreports.Deciding: Quicken vs. QuickBooks Is there an “upgrade path”? A good approach in case you are a novice may be to start with Quicken instead ofQuickBooks . Many concepts in these two programs are similar, so you won’t bewasting time by learning Quicken , even if you choose to upgrade to QuickBooks later. Nor will you be wasting much money, given Quicken ’s low costs. If you later decide that you really do need QuickBooks , you can easily upgrade.QuickBooks directly imports Quicken records –even several years of Quicken records will import just fine. QuickBooks records cannot be imported into Quicken however. None of your effort in Quicken will have been wasted, and you’ll have a head start atlearning QuickBooks because of your experience with Quicken .4
2/26/2018Summary and Conclusions Ag producers need a flexible, easy-to-use, and efficient record keepingsystem. Both Quicken and QuickBooks offer features that enable producers torecord, sort and summarize cash income and expense by enterprise orproduction activity. Both offer a variety of reports that support business analysis andcommunication with business partners, lenders and government agencies. For producers who are small, whose personal and farm/ranch businessfinances are not entirely separate, who produce commodities only andwho do not want payroll services or invoicing and accountspayable/receivable capabilities Quicken is an inexpensive, easy-to-usesoftware tool that offers much flexibility and utility in recording transactionsand sorting and summarizing them.Summary and Conclusions For producers who need accrual accounting features and payroll services,or who want to allow accountants to further process transactions usingAsset Manager or similar features, QuickBooks is required. For personal investment features, Quicken is necessary. Hence, review of the two packages suggest that use of Quicken (or asimilar software tool) could be beneficial to all farm families as all havepersonal expenses, many have off-farm jobs and some have off-farminvestments. However, some farm families will also require QuickBooks (or a similartool) to meet small business needs that are deficient in Quicken .5
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Asset Manager or similar features, QuickBooks is required. For personal investment features, Quicken is necessary. Hence, review of the two packages suggest that use of Quicken (or a similar software tool) could be beneficial to all farm families as all have personal expenses, many have off-farm jobs and some have off-farm investments.
